Dan Aykroyd has been promising for years (decades?) that Ghostbusters 3 is right around the corner, but his undying commitment to the project has yet to pay off. Bill Murray bears his fair share of responsibility for that, as the comedic legend has seemingly never been that interested in the prospect of a third round of ghost-catching; however, Murray has avoided confirming his lack of involvement with the threequel (even referencing it as “a possibility” earlier this year).

Ghostbusters 3 at last began to show some genuine signs of (after)life again three months ago, when Etan Cohen (Men in Black III) struck a deal to rework the script. Later, Aykroyd reiterated his previous claims that Murray is passing on the film and voiced confidence that production will get underway sometime over the next year.

It’s long been anticipated that Ivan Reitman will return as director for the third installment in the Ghostbusters franchise (should it actually come to fruition). Just last week, though reports emerged that Kevin Costner is signed on for Reitman’s football comedy Draft Day, suggesting that Reitman might instead be working on that project over the forthcoming year.

Deadline is now reporting that Paramount has put Draft Day in turnaround, so as to allot the proper amount of time for Reitman to finish his pre-production duties on Ghostbusters 3 and get cameras rolling by sometime next summer. The site is also confirming that Murray won’t be appearing in the film; no doubt, his absence will be accounted for somehow (though, probably not via death, for obvious reasons).

Ghostbusters 3 is referred to as “the long-gestating Ghostbusters reboot” in Deadline‘s report, which gels with what Aykroyd last had to say about the script in its current state:

“We’ve got a brilliant new writer on it and we’ll be passing the torch on to a new generation. We’re working on it to make it just right to satisfy our fans. I’m confident we’ll be in production in the next year.”

Comedic actors like Anna Faris and Bill Hader are among those who have been rumored at some point to become members of the “new generation” of paranormal investigators and eliminators, though we haven’t heard anything substantial about the casting process recently. Since it’s now looking as though production could finally – FINALLY – be getting going sooner, rather than later, we should start to get some concrete information about casting for the film in the foreseeable future.